Damp squib
Michael Tanner
Carmen
Royal Opera House What is an opera house for? The question would sound silly if it weren’t being asked in a particular and, in this case, rather peculiar context: that of the latest press release from the Royal Opera, which lists productions of opera and ballet for next season, but begins by excitedly letting us know about a new ‘initiative’, the idea of which is to attract a new audience to the opera house: it seems that the management is more concerned to get people inside the building itself than to attend any performances of the kind that normally take place there. So we’re told ‘Deloitte Ignite opens alongside the launch of the 2008/9 season and is aimed at London’s [note the usual indifference to anyone living outside London] artistically curious; young professionals who may or may not yet have considered the Royal Opera House as somewhere for them. Spaces within the Opera House building will come alive with diverse creativity inspired by the senses, how we experience the world and create meaning from it, taking the traditional art forms of opera and ballet as a starting point.’ I’d be disingenuous if I didn’t admit a reluctant envy of someone who can write this kind of rubbish. But a few questions: the Opera House is usually full or nearly so, many of the members of the audience having found their way there without wholly irrelevant initiatives of the kind being planned. Why shouldn’t artistically curious young professionals find their own way there, if there are any seats for them? And how would their appearance relate to a building coming alive, not something I regard as appealing, with diverse creativity or anything else? And why should the ‘traditional forms of opera and ballet’ be a starting point, and for what? Mozart as a starting point for creating meaning from the world inspired by the senses? Of course it’s an error of taste even to attempt to make sense of this level of imbecilic prose, which aims merely to overawe people — but will it attract those young professionals?
Suppose they made the transition from whatever delights Deloitte Ignite provided for them and paid their £165 for a ticket, what would they think of, say, the revival of Carmen which is on at present? They would certainly recognise some of the tunes, and might well be exhilarated by the panache with which the conductor Daniel Oren launches into the prelude. When the curtain rises, they’d see the most conventional set for Carmen one could imagine, not a whiff of creativity (‘Say that word again! I love it!’ as the potential employer says to the applicant in a great Biff cartoon) about it, just sundrenched Spain, a shaky orange tree, a donkey, and plenty of hip-swinging passers-by. Tanya McCallin’s designs are of a piece with Francesca Zambello’s production, blatantly intended for a succession of performers to fit in with without any special instructions, unless they are up to abseiling down the cliff in Act III. One almost sympathises with Sally Potter in her attempt to make it new with ENO’s production last autumn. ‘Don’t come back, but 10 per cent is forgiven,’ I felt like saying about that absurdity.
Oren’s conducting is, apart from occasional spurts, so lethargic that it became a question whether we would ever see Carmen, as the afternoon sun brought things to a virtual standstill. When she arrived, she did nothing to raise anyone’s emotional temperature. This may have been the most undersung Habanera I have heard. And nothing in Nancy Fabiola Herrera’s performance erased the impression that it had no place in an international house. Even the Card Song, which is so impressive as almost to defy a performer to mess it up, just passed as a piece of slow, low singing, punctuated by the giggles of Carmen’s friends — they sang and acted very well, as did Don José’s colleagues.
Marcelo Alvarez was suffering from a feverish cold on the opening night, but that didn’t prevent him from giving the best performance I have seen from him for a long time. He is not an idiomatic singer, he might as well have been singing Canio. But he is heartfelt, and he gave a lovely account of the Flower Song, ending it with breathtaking quietness. In the last scene, a tricky one because it is dramatically so tense, yet musically and verbally rather diffuse, he and Herrera achieved no more rapport than they had the rest of the evening. As so often in this strange opera, the short exchanges between Carmen and Escamillo before he goes into the bullring were the most intimate moments. Kyle Ketelsen, the toreador, was even more upstaged by the magnificent horse he appeared on than his predecessors have been. The one singer who had everything was Susan Gritton, a Micaela who sang the whole part ravishingly and did what she could to make a non-role into a living character. For once the pathetic and the good were far more interesting and moving than the amoral and the swaggering, and how often can you say that?
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